One Night in Scotland
by Nightengale
Summary: John turns part way and raises an eyebrow, "you want to sleep in the car?" "Unless you would prefer the ground?"


Sherlock and John drive along a dark road in Scotland, fields and hills flanking both sides. John checks his watch, almost midnight, and stretches his eyes wide; not even any other cars on the road to keep his attention and fight off sleep.

"John," Sherlock says from the driver seat, "we may have a problem."

"I'm not falling asleep." John sits up straight. "I swear."

"As false hope as your assertion is, John that is not what I meant."

"What then, are you going to fall asleep? I told you we should have left earlier." John shuffles around for the map by his feet. "How much further do we have?"

Sherlock clears his throat awkwardly. "The distance may in fact be the larger problem..."

John stops searching around his feet then turns his head. "Sherlock..."

"We are nearly out of petrol."

John stares. "What?"

Sherlock's lip twitches.

John leans closer to Sherlock to glance at the dashboard, "you didn't think to mention the petrol sooner?"

"I just noticed."

"Just?"

"Recently."

"Recently?"

"An hour ago."

"An hour!"

"Shhh."

"Sherlock," John shoves over all the way into Sherlock's space to actually see the petrol gauge. He points at the dashboard. "The dial is on the red and the light is on!"

"That would be why I mentioned it."

John breathes through his nose and leans away back into his seat. Sherlock clears his throat again and tilts his head, lips pursed.

John stares at Sherlock, counts to ten in his head. "So?"

Sherlock glances at him once. "So?"

"So, what are we going to do?" John barks.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Obviously the car will stop and we will have to walk."

"Walk?" John points out the front window at the road. "Do you know how far we are from," John waves his hands in the air and grumbles, "anything?"

Sherlock shakes his head with a sigh. "Yes. Actually we are -"

"Don't tell me!"

Sherlock's mouth shuts with a click of his teeth and he drums his fingers once around the steering wheel. John puts a hand over his eyes and forces himself not to scream. He is so tired.

"John?"

"What?"

Sherlock clears this throat and John parts two fingers to peek through.

Sherlock gives a stern look before turning back to the road. "There are options available."

John drops his hand. "What, walk back? Because a two hour drive is much further on foot."

"No, John, in fac -"

"Plus after what you said to that PC…"

Sherlock scoffs. "Please, she couldn't tell a kidnapping from a mugging."

"That doesn't mean you can call her a -"

"It was true."

"It was not -"

"Some people are simply devoid of intelligence, creativity, or," Sherlock's voice rises in pitch with annoyance, "any skills at all!"

"That's not what you said though, was it?"

Sherlock clears his throat quietly.

John holds up his hand, counting off on fingers. "I heard the words moronic, infantile, borderline endangering, ineptitude, and - the kicker - chav."

"Not everyone finds the term 'chav' insulting."

John scoffs. "She did."

"Well, if she hadn't looked at you like -" Sherlock's mouth abruptly snaps shut and he stares at the road intensely.

John perks up. "What was that?"

"We seem to have gone off on a tangent..."

"Oh no, no," John folds his hands, "do continue."

"I believe the topic was what to do when the car uses up its petrol and stops in five minutes."

"_I_ believe you were saying, 'looked at you like...'" John holds out his hand inviting a continuation.

Sherlock huffs loudly, shoots John a look then starts on one of his 'no breathing' rants. "I will not stand idly by and watch you become the subject of lewd looks and double entendre conversation. You, John, are not something to be picked up and just carted off like a plate of food or new shoes to a bar or where ever to do with as she pleases. She should not to be allowed to use her eyes in that fashion nor think what obvious scenarios she was and you are not -"

"Wait, wait." John cocks his head. "Your stream of insults was defending honor?"

"Did I say that?"

John purses his lips. "I'm not sure you know how."

Sherlock sighs heavily and frowns. They sit silently for a moment then John leans forward. "What impure thoughts exactly were you gleaning?"

At that moment the engine makes a sound much like 'help, I'm dying' and they begin to slow down – Sherlock steering the way – until they roll to a stop at the edge of the road.

Sherlock turns his head to John. "She thought you'd be an easy shag, John."

John snorts. "I'd say I am."

Sherlock's lips do an odd twist. "You're not."

John stares at Sherlock. Part of him wants to incredulously say thank you but a much bigger wants to ask 'just why do you say that?' Instead he says, "You've complained yourself quite few times about my girlfriends, you know."

Sherlock laughs in an odd way. "Yes."

"So, give the PC a break, yeah?"

"John, you are..." Sherlock trails off and looks out the front window of the car.

John watches Sherlock carefully - tense face, eyes unfocused, his hands clenched on his knees. John's lip twitches but he makes himself not smile. "What, Sherlock?"

Sherlock turns suddenly to John. "You are worth more than that."

Then Sherlock opens his car door, steps out and shuts it behind him, leaving John to stare after him. John feels himself smiling and clears his throat to stop it. What a stupid man.

"Bastard," he mutters, the grin still at the corners of his lips, then opens his own car door.

Sherlock stands facing the waxing moon, hands in his pockets. John walks over and stands beside him. The hills are quiet, no obvious animals though the night is not unnaturally silent. The air has a slight chill to it but in his jacket John is comfortable enough, especially with Sherlock's warm presence beside him.

"Time to walk?" John asks, tone of resignation as disguised as he can make it.

"Before you decided for a trip down 'recent memory lane,' I was mentioning other options to our situation." Sherlock glances down at John and John can see the slight tension in Sherlock's face.

John raises both eyebrows and bumps his shoulder against Sherlock's. "Going to sprout wings and fly?"

Sherlock gives John a withering look

John smirks. "What then? Flag one of the invisible cars down, hitch a lift?"

"Camp."

"Camp... town races?"

"Don't be obtuse, John."

"Sherlock, we have no camping gear." John waves a hand at the empty landscape in front of them. "We are the side of the road, not the woods."

Sherlock pivots 180 degrees to point at the car behind them. John turns part way and raises an eyebrow, "you want to sleep in the car?"

"Unless you would prefer the ground?"

John turns completely and pulls out his phone, waggling it at Sherlock. "Or we could live in the 21st century and call someone."

"Hmm..."

John dials, listens to it ring for a moment then cut out. He pulls it away from his ear and tries again but nothing. He looks down at the phone, one bar - wait no bars - one bar. "You have got to be…. I don't… Scotland!" John growls and turns back to Sherlock. Sherlock does not mask his smirk well. "I hate you."

Sherlock starts to chuckle until John joins in as well. John hears Sherlock saying 'you are worth more...' in his head.

John puts his phone in his pocket, still smiling as their laughter dies down. Then John bends himself over and jerks up straight again. "All right, all right, car it is; walking in the morning."

"Or more likely flagging a car down."

"Joy."

They move at the same time back over to the car; Sherlock walks to the back and opens the boot while John goes to the backseats. Luckily they'd rented a large jeep like with the Baskerville case so the seats can slide up to allow for more room in the back. The whole thing is very situational comedy and John begins to chuckle as he climbs into the car. Sherlock raises an eyebrow in question.

"I feel like we're in a bad sitcom plot," John explains.

Sherlock frowns, "meaning?"

"Oh you know, random humorous situation, leads stuck in close quarters, what will happen or…" John cuts himself off as Sherlock's forehead start to furrow with confusion, "oh, of course you don't know."

Sherlock just narrows his eyes and stares at John.

"You know, the trope of two people stuck together somewhere for hours like an elevator, arguments, etc. and then they…" John raises both eyebrows.

Sherlock stops moving with his hand raised above his head on the door of the boot. "Are you suggesting we are going to have sex in the back of this car because we are stuck with no petrol on the side of the road?"

"No!" John waves his hand. "No, uh, just the situation."

"The situation..."

John purses his lips. "Or we might be in a horror film?"

Sherlock presses his lips together. "I would hope not a horror film."

"No? Wouldn't like to detect who the killer is?"

"Personally I am a bit tired for the run and hide portion."

John chuckles and shakes his head.

"Seats, John?"

"Yeah!"

John helps Sherlock push and pull the seats forward as far as they will go then climbs back out of the car, shutting the doors. He comes around the back as Sherlock pushes their bags up against the seats, feet still barely on the ground as he reaches.

Then Sherlock stands back up onto his feet. He frowns. "Charming."

"Not your kind of camping?"

"I prefer no kind of camping, John. City life is my ideal."

John's brow furrows and suddenly he is very interested. "No Holmes country estate?"

Sherlock scoffs. "Oh, at one point to be sure but none that I would set foot in."

"Too gentry?"

"Too quiet." Sherlock stares into the car as if seeing through it. "The city always has opportunities for intrigue, murder, data. The country only occasionally turns a wheel of thought, usually a placid pool."

"So no camping then?"

"Camping is an activity for those who pretend that society hasn't destroyed idea of 'living off the land' and that harmony with nature is some sort of idyllic state which human kind must aspire to return to when in fact they really just want to become intoxicated around a fire legally."

John tilts his head. "You're getting metaphorical and preachy; you must be tired."

Sherlock laughs once. "Just as tired as you."

Then Sherlock lifts a knee up onto the edge of the back and crawls in. John watches him for a moment then crawls in after, pulling the door closed. They lie side by side, heads on their bags, and staring at the ceiling of the car. John hears Sherlock fidget by his feet then the dull clop of his shoes coming off. John wiggles his toes but his feet are cold enough that he'll leave his shoes on. John lays one arm above his head, the other flat on his chest.

His eyes will not stay closed now.

John clears his throat. "So... you really don't like camping at all?"

Sherlock sighs. "Is this really of importance?"

John shrugs against the car floor. "Curiosity."

"About my camping interests?"

John hums in the back of his throat and lets the silence hang in the air until Sherlock sighs again, turning his head to the side. "No, not camping of any kind, my past experiences have been less than pleasurable."

John turns his head slightly because he knows by now when that certain tone of Sherlock's, however infrequently John hears it, means 'difficult childhood.'

Sherlock turns his head up again, going on. "My first camping trip, Mycroft angered a bee's nest into swarming me so I was stung twenty times and hospitalized as a result."

"Oh my god!" John blurts out without being able to stop himself. "Sorry, um, just... wow."

Sherlock chuckles. "Yes, delightful Mycroft. Interestingly that led to a deep interest in bees, of course not directly related to camping itself."

John watches Sherlock, wants to scoot closer and get Sherlock to pour out more of those little details. Any visual of Sherlock as a child makes John curious because the notion of a version of Sherlock still amassing all this genius, still young and maybe even naive or vulnerable thrills him.

"Another camping trip occurred due to school," Sherlock continues and his jaw clenches just slightly as he speaks. "That resulted in a number of my classmates holding me under water in an obliging lake until I passed out despite my best efforts to breathe." Sherlock clears his throat once. "Three against one was hardly fair but fortunately our teachers were not entirely inattentive and they did not kill me." Sherlock glances over and away in the same second at John. "In case my existence now did not elucidate that."

John stares at him but keeps his mouth shut this time. He thinks how odd it must be to associate something as normal as camping with death.

After a stretch of silence, Sherlock's eyes slide around over to John. John only looks back at him. Then he suddenly smiles in that 'fuck you, Anderson' way.

"However, I repaid them in later years by informing the one of his father's infidelity, pinning a cheating crime on another, and soundly rejecting the last in a loud public manner when he felt I had grown into a choice sexual specimen."

John snorts and chuckles, shaking his head. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

Sherlock smiles softly, weariness in his expression.

"Camping usually meant creative fire making and fishing," John says, "Harry pinching beers when we were older."

Sherlock frowns. "Dull?"

John shrugs and rolls on his side in one motion. "Maybe. Better than yours I'd say."

Sherlock face twitches, holding back a smile. "Yes." Sherlock rolls onto his side as well, one arm sliding up under his head on his bag.

"Slept in a car before?" John asks randomly, his eyes starting to feel heavy.

"Not in a camping sense." John's brain inserts 'drugs.' "I know you have."

John chuckles again. "How's that?"

Sherlock closes his eyes. "The tone with which you asked me."

Sherlock's hair falls into his eyes as he curls his other hand up under his face. His breathing begins to slow as John watches. John reaches over and pushes Sherlock's hair back out of his eyes.

"Know it all." John mutters and lets his eyes slip closed as well

"Amazing, you mean," Sherlock replies softly

John smiles and feels himself drifting down. "Good night, Sherlock."

John wakes up to the sun screaming 'good morning silly' at his face, no blinds to stop it. When John shifts he finds himself lying underneath Sherlock's long coat. Sherlock himself curls against John using John's one arm as a pillow and his own arm across John's chest. John lifts the hand of his pillow arm and lightly touches Sherlock's hair. He twists a curl between two fingers and watches Sherlock's face. Sherlock breathes slower in sleep, face still and slack, lips together and nose pressed into John's arm. John touches Sherlock's forehead with his free hand, brushes a line across Sherlock's pale skin. Seeing Sherlock so relaxed, so still and calm – no whirring brain or bouncing around or clenched jaw or speeches – just Sherlock bare, it is lovely.

John sees the exact moment Sherlock wakes up when his eyes twitch behind his eyelids and he feels Sherlock's fingers spread just slightly against John's chest. Then Sherlock tenses and opens his eyes, "Oh, I... I'm sorry, John, I..."

He starts to pull away but John presses his hand against the back of Sherlock's head. "It's fine."

Sherlock stays still but also tense. "Fine?"

"Yeah."

"I… I don't…"

"Sherlock, why did we end up talking about your history with camping last night instead of your verbally abusing a woman because of lewd glances in my direction?"

Sherlock stays absolutely still, eyes gazing somewhere around John's chest. "Why?"

"Because I don't ask questions I already know the answers to."

Sherlock looks up slowly with a smile. "Apt decision."

"I'm not a complete idiot, right?"

Sherlock fingers rub a small circle on John's stomach and his lip quirks up. "Not completely."

John smiles again and presses a firm kiss to Sherlock's forehead. "We should try to sleep a bit more; I think it's only 6:00."

"5:49"

John sighs and drums his fingers over Sherlock's under the coat. "The point is I'd like some more sleep before a long walk."

Sherlock makes a 'tch' noise. "We could call for a tow instead."

John's brow scrunches. "We have no mobile ser..." then stops mid-sentence and he clicks his teeth. "You have service?"

Sherlock's eyes flick up and he smiles. "Three bars."

John tangles his fingers in Sherlock's hair, pulling slightly. Sherlock hisses and shakes his head against John's fingers.

"God, I hate you," John says fondly.

Sherlock folds tighter around John, shifts one foot between John's ankles and kisses the inside of John's upper arm. "I hate you too, John."


End file.
